SHOWDOWN LOOMS ON MADISON MALL

Battle lines are being formed among midtown merchants, realestate men and civic leaders over a Lindsay administration plan to convert a 15‐block stretch of Madison Avenue into a permanent pedestrian mall, with limited access to buses and delivery vehicles.

Jacquelin T. Robertson, director of the Mayor's Office of Midtown Planning and Development, told a luncheon audience yesterday that he expected the first steps to be taken in the next few weeks to put the conversion plan into effect. The plan was put forward last December after trial closings to traffic earlier last year.

The mall would run from 42d to 57th Street.

A spokesman for Mayor Lindsaid that the plan was under “careful consideration,” but that no precise timetable could be announced. The $3.7‐million conversion has been approved by top city officials concerned with traffic, air pollution and economic development, and it has won the endorsement of Community Board 5.

Debate Among Businessmen

It hag stirred a lively debate, however, among businessmen in the area, and an early showdown is anticipated.

A rival group, Businessmen for the Madison Mall, disputes the Fifth Avenue Association's assertions, claiming that “more than 60 per cent of merchants on the avenue are in favor of the mall.”

The ad‐hoc group in favor of the mall lists more than 80 prominent realty men among its members, as well as retailers, hotel men and other midtown interests. A realty subcommittee of the businessmen's group, headed by E. William Judson, executive vice president of Oppenheimer Realty, said in a statement yesterday:

“We're convinced that such a mall, growing as it has out of a plan for all midtown Manhattan, will be a boon to our property values. This has been true of every city in which a street was redesigned to better accommodate the most prevalent and most neglected form of downtown traffic the pedestrian.”

‘Growing’ Opposition Seen

An opposed view was expressed by Michael B. Grosso, executive vice president of the Fifth Avenue Association. He said:

“Opposition to the whole idea is growing by the day. We saw what happened when they tried Tuesday‐night closing of traffic on Madison Ave nue last year. It was a flop. We don't intend to let the city foist this kind of thing on us permanently.”

If there is a middle ground in the controversy, it is being taken by the Association for a Better New York, a group of 100 prominent real‐estate executives and other businessmen who formed a year ago for the t4 express purpose of improving the city.

Lewis Rudin, head of the realty firm of Rudin Management, said yesterday that the association favored a “trial run” before any permanent closing was undertaken.

“Frankly,” he explained, the city hasn't convinced us that the traffic arrangements would be satisfactory. It's possible that a Madison Avenue mall could tie midtown traffic into an awful knot. Let's see the traffic reforms first, then the mall — which we think might be a great thing for the city.”

Mr. Robertson, the city's chief midtown planner, sought yesterday to blunt the criticism of the mall. He spoke at 488 Madison Avenue to a luncheon meeting of the Art Directors Club, which numbers among its New York members about 400 executives of advertising agencies, store concerns and other businesses.

“In the center of every big city it's the same,” he said. “There simply isn't enough room for both pedestrians and vehicles in certain corridors, and you can't solve the problem by cutting through more corridors. If we were to slice another north‐south avenue through mid‐Manhattan tomorrow, it would be jammed with traffic within six months. The only way is to separate vehicles and people.”

Repaving Envisioned

Under the Madison Mall plan, the stretch from 42d to 57th Street would be closed to traffic and paved from building front to building front, probably with Belgian block. Crosstown traffic would move normally, but the northbound traffic that now flows along Madison Avenue would be limited to buses.

Delivery vehicles would have access to stores and office buildings during morning hours, when they would be permitted to use a 10‐font‐wide parking zone on the west side of the avenue. Buses would move along a 22‐foot‐wide roadway on the east side.

A minibus being designed by a Montreal company would carry shoppers, probably on a route that would pass along Madison and link the Bloomingdale — Alexander shopping complex at Lexington Avenue and 59th Street with the Macy‐Gimbels‐Korvette complex at Herald Square.

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A version of this archives appears in print on February 10, 1972, on Page 44 of the New York edition with the headline: SHOWDOWN LOOMS ON MADISON MALL. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe